Session Information
26 SES 05 A, Leadership Development and Preparation
Paper Session
Contribution
The phenomenon examined in this article is school leadership development. The preparation of aspiring school leaders and school leadership development have been researched for decades (Bush & Jackson, 2002; Chin, 2003; Hallinger, 2003; Huber, 2004; Lumby, Crow, & Pashiardis, 2008; Young, Crow, Murphy, & Ogawa, 2009). Many of the studies are generated from interviews and surveys of individuals (Author, 2014). This body of research provides robust knowledge on what kind of leadership development is offered and how school leaders perceive the programs they have attended and their opportunities to learn.
Although the literature has documented that it has become a trend to cross positions, professions and contexts in school leadership development, these aspects are limitedly reflected in the way that school leadership development is researched. Neither does research reflect that leadership development takes place in informal settings in workshops and workplaces addition to formal ones at colleges and universities. Informal settings may be more horizontal in their nature than formal settings because the division of labor, content, and modes of working are not determined or prescribed by legal frameworks and professional standards in advance. Thus, spaces for authoring arise in moments of interactions (Holland et al., 1998).
Although research on boundary crossing have gained increased attentional internationally (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Edwards, 2010, Engström 1987; Engström & Sannino, 2010) until recently, few scholars have engaged in the empirical analysis of interactions informal settings where school leaders, administrators, and researchers are crossing positions, professions and working contexts to collaborate over time.
This article seeks to fill this gap by focusing on if and how any patterns of interactions emerge in an informal team of school leaders, administrators, and researchers. In particular, we examine the kinds of discursive actions that emerge in the team, as well as if and how these actions intersect and reflect patterns of interactions consequential for leadership development.
The interprofessional team was situated in a Norwegian context and consisted of principals, administrators, and researchers (including one of the authors). The team was formed to support the principals in leading a local school improvement project aimed at increasing students’ expertise in approaching academic texts in different subjects with specific learning strategies, as well as in being leaders for professional and organizational learning. A main activity of the team was to explore different problem spaces (e.g., building a culture for feedback from staff, leading) when the principals serve as leaders of organizational, professional, and student learning. Different problem spaces in the pilot schools, as well as theory and research served as departure points for the common exploration of the team. The collaborative work of the team aimed at supporting the principals when they lead the local project, so we consider the team an informal setting for leadership development. The present study is based on artifacts and audio and video data collected from ten team workshops over two years.
The analytic framework of this study is grounded in third-generation cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987). CHAT offers an explicit set of analytic concepts for studying organizational phenomena, such as patterns of interactions in school leadership development, as emerging constituents of object-oriented activity, giving virtue to the understanding of the complex relations involved in their origin. Hence, a CHAT approach provides an opportunity to study in depth patterns of interactions and the ways in which they become constituted in the interplay of individuals, purposes, and tools to the affordances and constraints of the context in which social interactions are nested.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011a). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169. Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Bush, T., & Jackson, D. (2002). A preparation for school leadership international perspectives. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 30(4), 417–429. Chin, J. (2003). Reconceptualizing administrative preparation of principals: Epistemological issues and perspectives. In P. Hallinger (Ed.), Reshaping the landscape of school leadership development: A global perspective (pp. 53–67). Groningen, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers. Cohen, L. M., Manion, L. L., & Morrison, K. (2008). Research methods in education. London: Routledge-Palmer. Edwards, A. (2010). Being an expert professional practitioner: The relational turn in expertise. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit. Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Educational Research Review, 5(1), 1–24. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2009.12.002 Hallinger, P. (2003). The emergence of school leadership development in an era of globalization: 1980–2002. In P. Hallinger (Ed.), Reshaping the landscape of school leadership development: A global perspective (pp. 3–22). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers. Huber, S. G. (2004). School leadership and leadership development: Adjusting leadership theories and development programs to values and the core purpose of school. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(6), 669–684. Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundation and practice. Journal of Learning Sciences, 4(1), 39–103. Lemke, J. L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(4), 273–290. Lemke, J. L. (2001). The long and the short of it: Comments on multiple timescale studies of human activity. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(1/2), 17–26. Lumby, J., Crow, G., & Pashiardis, P. (2008). International handbook on the preparation and development of school leaders. New York: Routledge. Young, M. D., Crow, G. M., Murphy, J., & Ogawa, R. T. (2009). Handbook of research on the education of school leaders. New York: Routledge. Middleton, D. (2010). Identifying learning in interprofessional discourse: The development of an analytic protocol. In H. Daniels, A. Edwards, Y. Engeström, T. Gallagher, & S. R. Ludvigsen (Eds.), Activity theory in practice (pp. 90–105). New York: Routledge.
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